Global Networking and the New Division of Labor Across the Taiwan Strait

Abstract

Recent academic works of globalization indicate multiple driving forces of political and economic change at the current stage.¹ The first driving force realizes that non-state actors, such as multinational corporations and venture capital companies, form a “decentralization” force to transfer economic as well as political power away from nation-states. Dynamics of economic development is not vested on strong hands of a developmental state, but on global networking of international firms. Another school of thought argues that the state power does not “decline,” but “transform.” The state withdraws from traditional fields of direct intervention, but concentrates its power on infrastructures pivotal to the promotion of globalization. States also endeavor to attract advanced talents and improve social and political environments beneficial to global operation. At the same time, under the concern of economic security, the state still try to retain its political instruments of diverting economic affairs into political considerations. In brief, in the era of globalization, tensions between domestic political concerns and global economic benefits still exist.